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R

Rick Riordan

January 23 2017

After reading the Ancillary Justice series, Ninefox Gambit was a wonderful complementary read. We are dropped into an interstellar empire called the Hexarchate, where six factions with different skill sets vie for power within the system. (Think Divergent on a galactic scale.) The ultimate power in the universe is pure mathematics. An understanding of number theory has to be agreed on and followed by everyone in the society, right down to the yearly calendar and how many days in a week. Within this mathematic "orthodoxy" the laws of physics work as you would expect, and all is right in the cosmos. But from time to time, mathematical heresies arise, like adding a day to the week or computing with a different base number, and the whole fabric of physics starts to warp. Weapons don't work they way they're supposed to. New technologies become possible that should not be possible. Our hero, Captain Kel Cheris, is a military commander who gets in deep trouble for unorthodox strategy, but she is given a way to redeem herself: Retake an important station that has fallen into the hands of heretics. To do this, she must use a secret weapon: She downloads the consciousness of a never-defeated general who has been dead for thousands of years. The only problem: this general was consigned to cold storage because he went mad and massacred his own armies. Can Kel control the new voice in her brain? Can she trust it, or keep from being taken over? And how will she defeat an unknown heresy? Once you get into the premise, this is a fantastic adventure with brilliant world-building.

S

Stevie Kincade

September 21 2016

Year of the Sloth Month of the Candied Yam Day of the Engorged Marsupial Hour of the Mollusc Dear Mr Yoon Ha Lee, I was particularly excited to read your story “Ninefox Gambit” as it has outstanding reviews from many smart people who's opinions I respect. It is clear from your prose and concepts that you are a very good writer and had a clear idea of what you wanted to do, then you went out and did exactly that. I have respect for the giant middle finger you waved at the “show don’t tell” school of writing by neither "showing" nor "telling". I admire the punk rock aesthetic of not bothering to describe almost anything or anyone. I kind of appreciate that far from hand-holding your reader - you left us alone in a dark room with a disassembled flashlight and no instructions. These were gutsy choices Mr Lee. I like that people seem to think this is a Science Fiction book when we both know it is a work of Fantasy. Every time you say “mathematics” you really mean *wink* “magic”. Right? I like how you made your universe work on the principle of “The Secret”. The magical thinking that if people believe in something really, really hard then it will become true. This made me imagine an army of Fascist Oprah Winfrey’s bludgeoning Heretics with magical weapons to maintain the consensus reality of “The Secret”. I must admit an army of fascist Oprah’s was a completely original idea no Science Fiction author has ever made me think of before. To me your book is like a Sonic Youth album where they play amp feedback for 40 minutes instead of gritty pop songs or when Neil Young did that "animal noises" album. These are bold, artistic choices but not something I could get crazy about. The way you gave us a sweet blast of familiar pop in the last minutes of the album made the previous artsy part seem even artsier. Best of luck with the Hugo next year, <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="c9be4d7d-45d8-4725-b667-e3d6b9d4bf34" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="c9be4d7d-45d8-4725-b667-e3d6b9d4bf34"> But don't stray too far from actual reality and think you are taking it from "Too like the lightning" </label> Yours in cylindrical and calendrical heresy, Stevie Kincade (Audiobook) So it is quite possible that I am just too dumb to "get" this book. Plenty of intelligent people I respect love "Ninefox Gambit". Plenty of smart people enjoyed "Uprooted" and the writers gave it the Nebula Award BUT they are all wrong and are horrible people for making me read it. THAT said the one thing I can contribute is that if you were thinking of listening to this as an audiobook you should AVOID AVOID. This is a book that has been described as "impenetrable" by readers. Imagine how tough it is to listen to a book where almost nothing is explained or described, everyone has a weird name and the narrator is a very weak voice actor. If you are interested in this, get the book, take your time and hopefully you will enjoy yourself more then I did. So this doesn't work as an audiobook for a number of reasons. Mostly Yoon Ha Lee wrote something that just will not work in this form. Characters and castes of weird names are introduced without reference, description or anything that would help you remember who they are. Unless you have pen and paper or a photographic memory and 100% concentration you are going to be lost. Even if you have all those things you are probably going to feel lost. And stupid. You are not stupid. Yoon Ha Lee is just too out there on the cutting edge to bother with old fashioned writing techniques like "exposition". A better voice actor then Emily Woo Zeller would have helped. She was fine when narrating and as our protagonist Charis. (Cherryh?) Jadoa was her "male gruff voice" which while not terrible was not good either. The problem was that her voice for every other character was "gruff voice + teeth grit of varying degrees". I couldn't tell any of these mostly male characters apart from one another. They all had weird names and the author told me literally nothing about them. Zeller thinks military men all speak through gritted teeth all the time. So every time one of them said anything I was busy thinking "who is this guy and why doesn't he open his mouth when he talks" instead of focusing on the wonderful prose. I was halfway through the book before I realised Zeller was saying "Calendrical Heresy" not "Cylindrical Heresy" which I assumed to be another mathmatical heresy involving the use of cylinders. <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1474456681i/20601172.png" width="220" height="248" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> I thought it was a little odd that for a book with this much buzz that could use all the help it can get in conversion to audiobook they went for maybe the the 400th best available narrator. So the main bad thing in the universe is called "Callendrical rot". This is basically when Heretics start not believing in "The Secret" aka "the Calender". "Callendrical Rot" is like "Bad juju" or "the evil in the woods" it's something we definitely do not want. To stop this we have magic ships called "moths", various magic guns, magic spells called "exotics" and magic potions called "splinters". All in various "mathmatical" guises. At it's heart we have a familiar story of a good person allying with a bad person out of necessity and trying to do as little evil as possible. I got that part. It was everything else I didn't get. Most books go through the ordeal of character and world building. Then we evaluate the plot and motivations and criticise if there are internal inconsistencies. "Ninefox Gambit" doesn't have to worry about any of that. The universe works by mathmatical magic and so Duex Ex Machina's can be summoned at any time for any reason. They don't need to be explained at all. It's a much lower bar to pass. I wonder how much more I would have liked this book if the universe worked by mysterious alien juju that requires belief and ritual to work instead of mathmatics. After starving us of information, near the end of the book in the middle of the BIG BATTLE one of the characters turns to the other and says basically "Hey would you like to hear some BACKSTORY"? Funny stuff Yoon. We get a couple more flashbacks at the end via magic potion that explain a *few* of the things we were wondering about . So as I alluded to the ending was a nice conclusion in terms of paying off all of the WTFness of the entire book a *little bit*. "Cloud Atlas" makes the reader WTF but we are fed these wonderful clues that make us want to keep reading and then re-read it. I was lost at the start of "Too Like the Lightening" and felt like a dumbarse in parts. As we kept peeling back more layers of the onion I began to understand the things I didn't understand before while coming up with a bunch of new questions. It made me want to read it again with a full understanding. While I fully admit I was lost through most of "Ninefox Gambit" and experienced it in the worst possible format - what I did get out of it doesn't make me want to buy the book and read it again to "really get it". I think this will be a book that people either love or hate. I was frustrated with it. <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="60d039fe-6afb-41f9-a7dd-498581a64d6c" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="60d039fe-6afb-41f9-a7dd-498581a64d6c"> So learning that Cheris was a heretic was cool. I hated the Tetragarchy and was not down with the Calender but all I knew about the Heretics was that one of them liked certain confectionaries. I couldn't really get behind them based on that fact alone. Cheris fight for calendrical rot gives the series a place to go </label></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]>

B

Bradley

May 31 2016

Update 5/15/17 Re-read: I got the ARC of the sequel and now that this novel has made it to the finals of the Hugos for this year, it behooves me to do a re-read since I enjoyed it so much the first time. Does it hold up after a year and a re-read? Absolutely!!! Knowing what's going to happen with all the twists I can expect does not reduce its enjoyment. Indeed, it only deepens it. This is indeed a beautiful work of the imagination, running wild and free like a raven across the universe. Yes, this is a Mil-SF novel, and yes, this is also a quantum-imagination novel, but it's also one hell of wild ride when it comes to all the intrigue and the bloodbaths and the sheer wicked delight I get in switching sides among the factions. I totally recommend this to everyone who has even a smattering of interest in reading SF, least of all so you can see what a wild ride it can really become if we allow our writers to go the full distance, to push all the quantum envelopes. :) Original Review: I expected a deep-space and deep-time Space Opera, and I sure as heck got just that, but here's the great and wonderful exception: I also got a deep-character exploration of both Cheris, a mathematical genius and warrior, and Ninefox Shuos Judao, an imprisoned immortal General who also happens to be so quite excellent at killing that he's also considered insane. Fortunately, he's also the heptarchate's pet. Or is he? What's even more interesting is how these two interact, but saying much more than that is telling, and I seriously don't want to spoil anything. It's simply too delicious. I should warn you all that there is a kind-of heavy learning curve at the opening, with lots of strange terms that seem like english, but have contexts and combinations that are very strange indeed. What's a calendar, you ask? Oh, it just happens to be a society-wide mental and mathematical consensual reality engine that requires, (I believe,) the rigid mindsets of all the people under it to alter reality. I had to figure that one out for myself. The author does *not* intend to pretend that you, dear reader, are dumb. Fortunately for a lot of us, we readers like challenges and like to work out so many, many terms. I mean, what's a cinderhawk, you ask? I can only give you a vague conceptualization, but it's one hell of a spaceship that can improve its reality-warping effects in conjunction with others like it. So cool. The tech is pretty damn wild, and the world-killing tech seems to be even wilder. So what could hold against such amazing weaponry? Oh, an entirely heretical calendar, of course, with all the people who believe that reality works a different way, and so it does. Oh. My. Goodness. Well, I'm doing a little happy dance right now. This is WILD and FANTASTIC SF. :) Didn't I mention that the novel holds together almost entirely through a few great characters? Oh, yes, I did. I'm going to be thinking about strategy and tactics for quite some time, and it applies to all game theory fields, whether we're talking space battles, long-games against entire calendars, or interpersonal manipulations and sweet, gloriously-satisfying endings. :) I was never bored, but this book took me through some rather difficult times because it is so dense with information. Fortunately, with a close eye and a stout heart, it is very worth the read and most things become obvious in their nature or there's enough visualization and idea-building behind it that it all becomes clear later. I won't say this is a difficult book, but I will say that it is challenging and very, very rewarding, almost as if we're playing a long and impressive game with the author. Which is fitting, since we're dealing with the Ninefox, Jedao. Can you guess who's gambit this is? I think I'll be thinking about this book for quite some time. It's just that interesting and clever. It's also a great story. My only hate at this point is in waiting for the next book. I CAN NOT WAIT. There's a very long game coming, even if this one was very satisfying on it's own, and I am entirely hooked. Thanks goes to Netgalley for the ARC Update 9/20/16: And since I'm also a big fan of recursive maths to go along with calendrical rot, I'm linking back to a <a href="http://www.tor.com/2016/06/15/stealing-the-future-ninefox-gambit-by-yoon-ha-lee/" rel="nofollow noopener">Tor</a> review that linked to me. :) We're well on our way to establishing a consensual reality, here, folks. :)

W

William

August 04 2017

Final Review - - Rant Warning Truly toxic in so many ways. I found the perfect word for this crap: Logorrhea <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logorrhea">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...</a> This book is a painful and completely zero-star waste of time. AHA! Big Clue! - YHL went to college at “Cornell University, majoring in mathematics” [but no degree], and earned a master's degree in secondary mathematics education [to teach High School math] from Stanford University. Perhaps YHL’s idea of math wasn’t disciplined enough in school? Lee's lack of any kind of discipline or skill shows repeatedly in the writing of this book ? At first, I thought the author was scamming readers on purpose with this confusing word-salad crap. But no, by the last half of the book, you realise: It's not a scam, the author really IS deluded and talentless. Summary: 1. 2-star: Some clever plot ideas and world-building imagination 2. 5-star: wasted potential 3. 5-star: verbal diarrhoea dialogue 4. 5-star: masochistic neologism overload 5. 5-star: a thousand dull, unsympathetic characters 6. 5-star: abuse of the words "science" and "math" 7. 5-star: factions "racism" throughout 8. 5-star: plodding pace 9. 5-star: who the f*** cares about this mess 10. 5-star: I only finished this upchuck due to actual in-person recommendations by two of my favourite (and famous authors) - I simply cannot believe they liked it! It is nothing (nothing) like the extraordinary quality of their own work. *Godzilla Facepalm* <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1502381288i/23557175._SX540_.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> By the end of chapter 2, I realised either I was badly confused, or not paying sufficient attention, or the author was crap or worse. So I stopped, and yes.... I re-read Chapter 2 with the two arrogant blowhards, full of complete nonsense. I advise others to skip the first half of chapter 2. It's crap constipated word-salad and 95% irrelevant. Even without chapter 2, the book so far is pretty dull politics buried in word-salad-abused info-dump. Ugh Word-salad machine gun <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1502643101i/23579084._SX540_.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> There's no real math or science anywhere in this book. It's not science-fiction at all. Just fantasy spells-bullcrap and tedious dialogue dressed up pretentiously as math and science. There is also a quite-repulsive and clichéd discussion and justification of Jedao killing a million people, and his morally bankrupt masters still keep him around, just like the Trump and the GOP. Pretty disgusting. Did I mention Rant warning? 9.0% in. Wow, a thousand years in the future and men are still PIGS towards women. 30% in and so far I really hate this book. I honestly think the author is scamming everyone with confusing, masochistic-word-salad neologisms. Ugh. I'm told that Lee's prose clears up at the end (after getting much worse in the middle), including backstory, to give readers the giant end-of-word-salad, pain orgasm Update: Nope. It gets worse and worse ALL the way to the end. Ugh. I was going to recommend you keep notes on the characters and objects mentioned, especially those with several names, but why bother? YHL continues to spew new characters and places at an increasing rate, often for a single page only before discarding them, all the way through the end of this mess. It seems the author here uses a random fake-word generator to blow smoke at you. I was sure YHL was intentionally making the book as obscure and unapproachable as possible. Lee often twists the meaning of words we do know in English into zombie pseudo-science soldiers of confusion. However, now, I just think the Lee is completely deluded and without skill. It could be that this book is just a masochistic, word-puzzle pain-orgasm for some readers who enjoy that. I don’t enjoy jigsaw puzzles or fake word games much, card games or word tricks, but some people do. I understand the satisfaction of putting together the pieces of a detective mystery, just not trying to assemble pseudo-word puzzles and tongue-twister names into coherent sentences and thoughts that advance the very thin plot. Also, the book is pretentious and pedantic again and again. Example: Why add the “...and twelve minutes” here? Jeexus! ... the fact that Hexarch Nirai Kujen’s silver voidmoth call indicator had been blinking at him nonstop for the past four hours and twelve minutes. It’s like a gnurd bragging about Amazon phone tech-support hold times to his buddies. * Facepalm * A thousand years in the future, they can put General Jedao alive in Cheris' head, and they still use their eyes to read reports? * Facepalm * "We spend most of our time destroying our eyesight reading reports." Throughout the book, there is complex minutiae about pretentiously "clever" systems and events that are INFO-DUMPED without any explanation, ever. Make it stop, please! I’m told by a 5-star reviewer that this prose actually gets WORSE “and then better” once you figure out the cod-magic calendar psychosis. But no, I disagree, it does not get better. If you look at the GoodReads quotations pages for this book, you will see not a single quote of any humane feeling or real value. Most of the quotes listed are just forgettable, inhumane crap. And this book is NOT Science Fiction. It’s a hideously convoluted magical fantasy, pretentiously using the word “mathematics” instead of “spells”. The author blows lots of big Bull Sh’t at you to disguise the fact that Lee hopes his readers will not see the truth, and will struggle with this intentionally obscure crap for hundreds of pages. 55% through. My god this is dull. Page after page of crap like this: “I need you, soldier,” Isaure said. “You’re a lousy excuse for a Kel, but you’re all I have left.” 74.0% ... interesting twist here, finally! We saw it coming half the-book ago, though. Now I bet there’s an intensification in the enemy’s (author's) machine-gun word-salad assault on us * Facepalm * 75.0% ... I was right. The plot twist was immediately buried under pages of blather, far too many new characters and places per page, etc. I’m sure this all makes sense in YHL’s head. Too bad the prose is crap. Many reviewers say “the last 10% is so good” and we’ve been rewarded so well for our word-masochism for 90% of the book. And they then have some kind of orgasmic epiphany and suddenly award it 5 stars. Feels so good to stop bashing your head in with an iron bar, eh! There is (falsely) claimed an orgasmic ending for this book, that this ending is written in clear, approachable prose and fully explained back-story and conclusions. This smacks of praise only for the cessation of pain, not for epiphany. Besides, the end is just as bad as the rest. Worse, even. Ugh. Oh, and "the end of the book" is not the end. There's another book which picks up where this one "leaves off". Maybe more ? _________ For more, please see my discussion with my very kind and indulgent friend, Lindsay. I am definitely not a “word puzzle person” and that is probably an insurmountable obstacle for me with this book. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1537592327" rel="nofollow noopener">My discussion with Lindsay</a> towards the end of Comments on his fine review. Thank you, Lindsay. See also reviews by my more eloquent and forebearing friends <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1831332528" rel="nofollow noopener">Stuart </a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1762618297" rel="nofollow noopener">Stevie</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2047370699" rel="nofollow noopener">Alienor</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1828799429" rel="nofollow noopener">Nathaniel</a> _________ Hexarchate faction cheat sheet <a href="http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/2299084.html" rel="nofollow noopener"> Hexarchate faction cheat sheet</a> _________ Note: My IQ is rated at 140 - 150 and I spent ten years at MIT doing ground-breaking computer graphics and "humane, approachable" interactive systems research in the 1970s. I’m not stupid on anyone’s scale, I didn’t "misunderstand" this book. This book is the antithesis of my whole life’s work.

P

Philip

October 27 2016

RE -READ DEC. '16 I never re-read books. I am not a fast reader and I have so many books I want to read that I simply don't have the luxury of re-reading. I was just so bugged that I couldn't figure this book out the first time I read it, I knew I needed to try again... Two months later. Well second time's a charm in this case. The trick: taking a full two weeks to read it (a little every day) to make sure I'm getting everything. My first read went quick because I basically resigned myself to being too stupid to understand, so I rushed and lost a lot of content and basically ended up screwing myself over. Going in the second time with exposure to the language helped (just as repeated exposure to any foreign language encourages acquisition) and I can now truly appreciate the innovation and talent on display here. It's still not my favorite book. The middle third especially was rough going, but mostly because it's a boring siege and we get all sorts of uninteresting viewpoints from random characters. It felt completely unnecessary. So while my original review is still very valid, I can honestly say I ended up enjoying this after putting in the requisite time and effort. I think I'll even continue with the series. Final rating: 3.5 stars. ORIGINAL REVIEW: 2ish stars. I'd classify this as 'hard sci-fi' not because of its scientific accuracy or technical detail, but because it's just hard work to read it. The closest thing I can compare this reading experience to is trying to read in Spanish. My oral Spanish is proficient enough for me to carry on a conversation with a 5-year-old. Seeing it written, I can understand more than that. Honestly, I could probably get the gist of a simple novel if I had a Spanish-English dictionary to consult. There would inevitably be a lot of content lost on me but I’d understand enough to know whether it was a good or bad book. Reading in a different language is just hard work! Naturally, Spanish-language books are not written with the intent to accommodate non-native Spanish speakers. They are written under the assumption that the reader has a sufficient grasp on the language. Unfortunately, the only apparent human native in Lee is Lee himself. Everyone else needs to learn quickly or give up. And there’s no dictionary. The book was mind-blowing in the sense that my mind blew up shortly after starting. And I, without a mind, was thus unable to understand anything further. It’s super cool. I can recognize that much. I love the parts with Jedao and his relationship with Cheris. They have some great banter. There are some decent revelations and payoffs at the end. The creativity and inventiveness is beyond impressive, the worldbuilding is all-encompassing. I can’t stress enough the ingenuity on display here. I respect it, I’m impressed by it, I can see why many people love it. I wanted to love it and feel slightly guilty that I don't. I just came away feeling like I didn’t understand enough to really enjoy it. Onto the “not for me” shelf it goes along with Uprooted and American Gods. <a href="https://mrphilipslibrary.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/ninefox-gambit-machineries-of-empire-1-by-yoon-ha-lee/" rel="nofollow noopener">Posted in Mr. Philip's Library</a>

A

Althea Ann

April 06 2016

One of my Hugo Award nominees, novel, 2016. _____ Intelligent, challenging Military SF/Space Opera. I'd read a few of Yoon Ha Lee's short stories, so had every expectation of liking this debut novel - and I was not disappointed. (I'm fairly certain that at least one of the short stories is set in this universe, although I can't quite place which one.) Captain Kel Cheris is a respected soldier in an extremely regimented, authoritarian and militaristic society. Her talent for mathematics - part of the underpinnings of how this world works - distinguishes her. But when she achieves a stunning victory by a not-by-the-book strategy, her unconventionality may be the end of her career. However, she proposes a shockingly bold plan to her superiors: she asks them to let her try to re-take a contested fortress by letting her team up with one of her empire's greatest generals and strategists of all time. The problem? General Shuos Jedao is imprisoned, accused of treason, and is possibly insane. On the face of it, that plot setup sounds fairly straightforward. And on one level, it is. The military tactics and action progress in an exciting manner, with good character development and a really interesting dynamic between Cheris and Jedao. However, the setting of the book has a whole other level, which is the nature of this world's reality. Everything here is 'calendrical,' meaning in the context of this book that it works based on advanced mathematical formulae. A calendar is like a computer program that determines the rules, physics, and nature of the surrounding reality. This is why this society is so strictly regimented: violating the calendar (heresy) can have severe, fabric-of-reality-affecting repercussions. Competing 'calendars' cannot be tolerated, as they cause something like 'bit rot' at the edges... Of course, it's quite questionable as to whether of not Kel Cheris' Hexarchate is really the necessity it presents itself as. There seem to be plenty of heretics who disagree. (Like Ann Leckie's 'Ancillary Justice,' this is very much a "from within the Evil Empire" tale.) The nature of this universe's physics is in keeping with some of Yoon Ha Lee's short works, in which, for example, art, or language, can affect the physical reality. Here, it's mathematics. It's still undeniably challenging for the reader to wrap one's head around at first. For myself, I found that everything went a lot more smoothly after I realized that, as physical as this world seems in its depiction, the way everything works makes perfect sense (and seems entirely possible) if you think of it as happening inside a computer-generated virtual reality. Many thanks to Solaris and Netgalley for the chance to read this excellent book. As always, my opinions are solely my own

K

Khalid Abdul-Mumin

November 12 2022

Weird, different, brilliant! Immensely enjoyable and fast paced but... lacking in something (?) more? I loved the concept of mathematical equations redefining reality with exotic effects. Highly recommended. Hope I get to the second one real soon, too much to read. Too few neuronal interconnectivity!

M

Mogsy (MMOGC)

January 11 2016

3 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://bibliosanctum.com/2016/06/12/book-review-ninefox-gambit-by-yoon-ha-lee/">https://bibliosanctum.com/2016/06/12/...</a> I’ll admit, I was somewhat torn on this one. On the one hand, there were parts in this book that gave me a real struggle, but on the other, there’s no doubt Ninefox Gambit is one of the most fascinating sci-fi novels I’ve ever read. Step into the incredible universe of Yoon Ha Lee’s Hexarchate, a civilization whose way of life is entirely dictated by an intricate calendar system. Mathematics is king, the governing force behind everything in this reality including physics and warfare. However, there’s also another side to this— and here’s where the lines between science fiction and fantasy start to blur—because in order for the calendar to function, the Hexarchate also requires belief. Throw enough calendrical heretics into the mix who observe a slightly different calendar, for example, and reality can suddenly go all awry. Say, the people might start acting erratically. Or your weapons might not work. As a result, the Hexarchate enforces its calendar with the utmost ruthlessness, bent on preventing such unpredictability from wreaking all kinds of havoc. Thus explains how a Kel soldier named Cheris receives her next assignment. Expecting to be dismissed after a misconduct on the battlefield, Cheris is instead given the mission to recapture the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star base recently taken over by a population of heretics. To aid her in breaking the siege, Kel Command has extracted the digital ghost of a brilliant general and tactician named Shuos Jedao, grafting his consciousness to hers so that the two can work as one to deal with the situation. The only problem is, in life Jedao was a madman, recognized for his victories but also notorious for having killed more than a million people including his own soldiers. While the general has never lost a battle, can Cheris really trust this manipulative genius not to make her his next victim? First, just let me first state unequivocally that this book contains some of the freshest, most inventive ideas I’ve ever encountered in sci-fi. Story concepts rooted in mathematics are often tricky, and they’ve never really been my strong point. But when your math is virtually indistinguishable from magic? Then yeah, I can definitely get behind that. Ninefox Gambit is no doubt breaking new ground in combining elements from multiple genres, and it is extremely clever. However, I also mentioned feeling conflicted about the novel, and this is in large part due to its inconsistent pacing. In the beginning, the reader is dropped into this strange universe and left to flounder, and it’s easy to become confused and overwhelmed if you’re not paying close attention. It makes this one a rather challenging read, especially since the story goes nowhere fast. After all, we are talking about a siege here, and the fact that it happens in space doesn’t change the basis of this long and drawn out process. Still, bursts of action occur do here and there, probably just enough to keep me going, so that in the end I found myself in the awkward position of alternating between not wanting to put the book down and wanting it to be over already. Still, irked as I was with this book at times, I have to say both Cheris and Jedao were brilliant. In my opinion, their relationship is where this novel shines, and not least because of their unique psychic connection; both characters come from interesting backgrounds, and their combined strengths and talents make them a force to be reckoned with. However, by that same token, their individual foibles also result in multiple clashes. As a Kel soldier, Cheris has been trained from the start to follow her “formation instinct”, an urge that encourages obedience, loyalty, and conformity. Giving up that compulsion in favor to another authority like Jedao is a challenge to everything she feels is natural and right, and it’s a struggle that gradually threatens her sanity. Then there’s Jedao, whose mind I find both alluring and downright frightening. It’s no surprise that the story got interesting as soon as he entered the picture. He may spout things about war that make a lot of sense in a twisted and horrible kind of way, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s a merciless, stone cold-hearted bastard. And yet, despite being a complete psycho, the general’s character is also delightfully intriguing and complex. Many of my favorite scenes involve the conversations between him and Cheris, and perhaps against my better judgement, I wanted her to let him in. Overall, I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more if the beginning had eased me into the setting more gently, as opposed to throwing all its confusing concepts in my face. While I enjoyed the story itself, my patience was also tested by the pacing, which was all over the place. These issues aside though, I have to applaud the fantastic world-building and character development. Both these aspects were extraordinarily well put together, not to mention the concept of a Hexarchate that uses mathematical calculations and a calendar to govern itself is one of those things that make you gawp in wide-eyed wonder at its ingenuity. Ninefox Gambit might not be an easy read, but there’s also a lot to like if you’re willing to invest in it. As such, I probably wouldn’t recommend this book to everyone, but if you’re a sci-fi fan interested in something more innovative and unusual, then this might be exactly what you’re looking for.

A

Acqua

November 17 2016

Ninefox Gambit is my favorite book. It's the kind of novel I could reread over and over and still get something new from - this was the sixth reread in two years for me, and I'm still discovering things about this world. But let's get to what Ninefox Gambit is. This is a story about sieges: Cheris' siege of a space fortress, and Jedao's siege of <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="4c232fe1-af11-465f-b20c-163682638245" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="4c232fe1-af11-465f-b20c-163682638245">Cheris' values, beliefs and mind</label>. And it is, in fact, a very twisty book, without needing that many shocking plot twists - just layers upon layers of mind games present and past, slowly unraveling towards a partial truth. I say "partial", because this book will almost never straightforwardly reveal that a certain character was lying in a particular moment, which, in a book in which most non-PoV characters are often at the very least lying by omission, makes for an interesting exercise in ambiguity. You know some of them are liars. Being able to tell when they're lying - well, that's not always as easy, and a few things are left for you to interpret. I often see people say that this book is hard to get into, because "it doesn't explain enough" - which is said both about the way it relies on hints and subtext and about the worldbuilding, which is, admittedly, one of the most unique (read: outright bizarre) I've ever read. I strongly disagree. I really appreciate when a book trusts its reader to keep up, to figure things out on their own. Maybe it will take more of my attention, and it won't be an easy read, but I'm glad not to have to wade through infodumps every time I reread. It's a graceful writing choice, in my opinion. (Also: if a 17-year-old ESL speaker made it, you probably can too.) Ninefox Gambit is deceptively short. It's barely longer than 300 pages, and yet it's one of the few books that managed to convince me that there's an entire universe of things happening outside the Scattered Needles siege, an universe with a complicated and often ugly history, and I love how wide it feels, how high the stakes are at the end. It mostly follows two characters, whom I love with my whole heard, even though they're terrible. ? Kel Cheris, math lesbian and professional trouble magnet, narrates most of this book. She makes friends with AIs ("servitors"), joined the military faction because she wanted to fit in, and got caught up into a scheme that led her to be anchored to Jedao's ghost and leading the swarm (space fleet) in the Scattered Needles siege. Deserves a nap. Unlike many of the characters, she still has a somewhat functioning moral compass. ? Shuos Jedao, bisexual disaster, was a general who lived centuries before the siege, and he is well known for never losing a battle and for having slaughtered his own army during his last one for apparently no reason. He's not the kind of person you think of when you think about mass murder - he's charming, far from unfeeling, likes talking to people, and is mostly a pleasant person to be around. Until he's not. With every reread, I realize more and more how much of a manipulative bastard he is - this is one of the few books in which the manipulative character not only was actually good at manipulating, but the book made me believe he was. And the Cheris-Jedao dynamic? So fascinating. It reminds me of how much can be done with relationships that aren't romantic in the slightest when you develop them enough. There are other relevant characters I love, like Hexarch Shuos Mikodez (the morally messed up and aroace highlight of book two), and Hexarch Nirai Kujen, the evil scientist who reads like the sci-fi version of a fae (cruel, beautiful, impossibly ancient). A few chapters are told from the PoVs of minor characters to show what's going on while Cheris and Jedao's ghost are in the command center. And even those characters left an impact on me, and that's not easy to accomplish. I also, of course, love the worldbuilding to pieces. It's Korean-inspired space opera with a math-based magic system that is affected by people's beliefs and by the system of timekeeping they implement. It's fascinating and not easy to understand at first, but I loved it for its beauty and weirdness - for a bloodthirsty space dystopia where war and ritual torture are the norm, the Hexarchate is beautiful in an unsettling way. And it's also very queer; this book has an all-queer cast, and it's the demonstration that you can write about queer people living in objectively horrible places without writing queer trauma porn (there are no homophobia or sexism in this book, and it's still very much a space dystopia.) And one last thing, before I turn this review into a book in itself: I love how this novel plays with ableist assumptions. The amount of people who don't try to dig deeper in the circumstances around Jedao's mass murder and take "madness" as a reason for what he did is... oddly realistic. As this book says, as straightforward as it ever gets, that's not how things work. Trigger Warnings, if you need them - I think it's better to go into this prepared (they're not actually spoilers, but if you want to go into this without knowing anything more, don't open this): <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="3e0f4c85-1b61-4520-b842-56776a3e309d" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="3e0f4c85-1b61-4520-b842-56776a3e309d">Death, mass shooting, suicidal ideation, dismemberment, gore. A man is sexually assaulted near the ending. Mentions of torture, manipulative behavior, graphic animal death. Memory loss/erased memories. Suicide (side character, in the past), suicide of a family member (another side character, in the past)</label>

R

Rachel (TheShadesofOrange)

June 20 2020

4.5 Stars This was easily one of the most complicated and confusing science fiction books that I have read to date. Yet, despite that, I realllt liked it. I am not always a fan of military science fiction, so I was admittedly nervous how I would get along with those aspects of the story. However, I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed reading about the military tactics. I probably did not fully understand all the details, but I was still fascinated by the strategies used. The military technology involved the intersection between geometry and calendar systems, which was incredibly unique. These discussions of mathematical computation went a bit over my head, yet I still loved reading those sections. The dead general was easily the best character in this novel. He was very moral grey, sometimes leaning towards moral blackness. I loved the complexity of his character and found him to be incredibly intriguing. He was certainly not likeable, but I was fascinated to learn about his past and his moral principles. The female protagonist was strong, yet emotional, with a dark past of her own. I loved the interplay between these two characters as they attempted to work together towards their goals. While the main characters present themselves as cis individuals, the author still managed to being in his own trans experience into the story. The way that the male general was tethered to the female officer allowed for a unique perspective of gender identity as these two minds grappled to share a gendered body that did not necessarily match their personal identities. The ending to this one was very strong and satisfying, but I highly rexommend continuing on with the series because I thought the second and third books were even more brilliant. I would highly recommend this one to seasoned science fiction readers looking for a complex military space opera that is like nothing they have read before. Disclaimer: I received a copy from the publisher, Rebellion Publishing.

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